With the emergence of Spark as a unified computing engine, developers can perform ETL and advanced analytics in both continuous (streaming) and batch mode either programmatically (using Scala, Java, Python, or R) or with procedural SQL (using Spark SQL or Hive QL).

With MapR converging the data management platform, you can now take a preferential Spark-first approach. This differs from the traditional approach of starting with extended Hadoop tools and then adding Spark as part of your big data technology stack. As a unified computing engine, Spark can be used for faster batch ETL and analytics (with Spark core instead of MapReduce and Hive), machine learning (with Spark MLlib instead of Mahout), and streaming ETL and analytics (with Spark Streaming instead of Storm).

If missing values are something which haunts you then MICE package is the real friend of yours.

When we face an issue of missing values we generally go ahead with basic imputations such as replacing with 0, replacing with mean, replacing with mode etc. but each of these methods are not versatile and could result into a possible data discrepancy.

MICE package helps you to impute missing values by using multiple techniques, depending on the kind of data you are working with.

I’m at a conference, specifically a security conference. So I looked at the available WiFi connections. Among the conference and hotel specific connections and the MiFi and cellphone uplinks I spotted this one

In this module you will learn how to use the Enlighten Aquarium Power BI Custom Visual. While it might not be the most practical visualization it does provide a fun way to show categorical data and can have multiple series shown as well.

From now on, all dashboards must look like screensavers from the 1990s.

SQL Server 2016 went RTM this week and so naturally, we’re going to write about it. Here are a few writing prompts for you:

Check out what’s new. Microsoft has written a lot about their new features. Thomas Larock has written a really nice landing page for those posts, SQL Server 2016: It Just Runs Faster – Thomas Larock. Look through those links. Do you feel optimistic about 2016? Or maybe a bit disappointed? Let us know either way

Haven’t had time to download the bits, install them, explore and form thoughts on 2016 yet? Have no fear, check out Microsoft’s Virtual Labs. It lets you explore features without worrying about all the setup. In minutes you’ll be typing SELECT 'hello world';

– Two Major Licensed Editions: Enterprise and Standard;– Enterprise Edition can be licensed only “By Core”. Standard also available on “Server+CAL*” basis;– If you have SA** you can still use your old CAL licenses with SQL Server 2016 Enterprise Edition, but will be limited by usage of only 20 Cores on your server;– Standard Edition is limited by 4 Sockets/16 Cores and 128 Gb of Memory;

Lowest performance rate is $1.25/hr or just under $1K/mo. Only goes up from there

“Stretch Database currently does not support stretching to another SQL Server. ” Azure only

Lame/minimal filters…you have to roll your own functions, and they must be deterministic…no “Getdate() – 30”. This GUI is only slightly better than the horrible nightmare that was Notification Services…